For the most part, limousines are some of the safest cars to travel in, especially with your specialized gifts. They feature exemplary security details and settings. Their drivers are well trained, highly disciplined, experienced on driving clients safely. Nevertheless, you have to know how to stay safe when you are inside a Quad City limo traveling with your valuable items. One of the things you can do is to use the seats more.

Limos are spacious enough. You can move around comfortably without stooping too much. It is too tempting to stand and keep moving around the limo. However, using the seats minimizes the damage you may suffer. It is safer to spend more time on the seats than you do standing or moving around.

Smooth driving depends on the driver. You have little influence here. That does not mean you should keep quiet when the driver is not doing a good job. Speak up when the driver appears to be intoxicated or driving dangerously. Insist on efficient and smooth driving. Demand for accident-free rides.

Alcohol consumption can affect you a lot. It is normal for clients or passengers to drink alcoholic beverages while riding at the back of a limo. Although it is your right to drink, do so in moderation, so you know all that is happening at any given moment. Take care when opening beer bottles or beer cans in a moving vehicle. Do not startle the driver.

Summer in August can be cruel. I’m a wanderlust which means I love to travel and I have visited Australia three times in the last five years. Every time I am here, I fall even more in love with the people, food, culture in each town, the sites, and oh God… the surf sessions are so intense! Let’s not even talk about the accents.

Did I mention how intense surfing can get here? The waves are amazing, though a bit violent. However, if you are a surfer, you are addicted to the wave and the danger that comes with it? Well, that’s something to deal with now, isn’t it? Not only that but the locals seem like they don’t care about the threat in the water. Seriously, if you have ever seen the specials about Great White Sharks in Australian waters, you will know what I mean. They seem to have a very casual, mildly cautious attitude about this.

Everything was going great the other day when all of a sudden, it felt a bit “warm” at the apartment I have leased for the month. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a cheaper option given that I plan most things last minute. Not giving it much thought, an hour later, I started to really feel some heat. I went over to my heating and cooling central unit only to realize that the AC unit wasn’t working as I had set it. I had set it to 78 and yet the thermostat was noting 80 degrees. When I switched it to heating, the heat would definitely kick on, just not the AC.

The landlord called Snowman central heating installation. I must admit, they came within two hours. Given that it’s that time of the year, the summer season where half the units seem to stop functioning, I can appreciate someone coming out that quickly.

Apparently, the fix was simple at first. The technician believed I needed “Freon” but after that, he realized the air wouldn’t kick on. Then they had to go outside and replace parts. All said and done, three hours later, I had some cool air kickin’ in my sweet bachelor pad!

In fact, the next day my buddy called me to report that his air conditioner and heating unit wasn’t working properly either and that he had called two other places. Both had told him they couldn’t come to see him for at least 2-3 days. They could come the next day, but that would be an additional $75. My buddy does alright but none of us want to pay extra and $75 could be used for groceries or another bill. Not to mention, he didn’t know how much fixing the unit would cost.

I recommended him Snowman as well. He made the call late that day and left a message. They called him back at 9:15 am and were there by noon. Talk about quick service! In the end, it cost my friend $125 for some part that needed to be replaced but he was glad to have air running again.

Any way, it is time to hit the surf again. I look forward to a summer full of hot women, surfing, traveling, and growing!

I will never forget that fateful day. A few years ago, when I learned of my grandfather’s death through my mom, it threw me in for a loop. Let me give you a bit of history so that this, perhaps, may make any sense to you.

When my mom became pregnant with me, my father decided a month before my delivery that he would get up and leave without ever telling my mom anything. He didn’t even have the courtesy to leave her a note or to talk to my older siblings or his own parents. My mom was left devastated and alone without a caring partner. This can be awful in its own but since she was pregnant, my grandparents confessed to me that it almost took a toll on the pregnancy itself. Though my mother was without the love of her life, she had both my father’s parents and her own to babysit throughout the years, as well as financial support (thankfully).

Those Tricky Teen Years…

In my teens, I became quite the handful. Years of never having seen my father coupled with watching my friends celebrate happy father’s day holidays, I became a reckless teen. Sure, I loved my mom but she could not make up for the lack of his presence. It would only be many years later I would understand that I don’t need him. However, don’t explain this to a teenager. All I knew was, everyone else had a dad to play ball with, go camping, and much more. I didn’t. It didn’t help that sometimes bullies would run their mouths. Of course, I had friends who are like brothers to me today. Friends whose fathers would include me and my family in family events, barbecues, coach me, and help me get far in life.

The positive influences would save me in the long run. However, during college years and away from all the people I loved, I would lose sight of my goals. Somehow, I became a functional alcoholic. On the surface, everything would seem grand. After all, I was not only passing my classes, but most of the time, I’d be on the President’s List. I would come to join a social club or a sports club. I held a part-time job, dated girls, had my fun. What every typical student does, but much worse, and could easily hide it with my seemingly-happy-go-lucky smile and attitude.

Until that day. I was driving from the airport to my grandparent’s home when I decided to stop by the local town bar and (shamefully) got drunk. Way over the legal limit. I don’t remember much from then on but apparently I thought I could still drive. That cocky attitude would lead to me hitting another car and crashing into a poll.

Thank God For That DUI!

Thankfully, I got a DUI (yes, thankfully!) and the other family did not get hurt. That was my breakthrough moment when I saw how my reckless actions could have stolen other people’s lives.

As awful as that situation was, my family got me the help I needed. I hired a pretty reputable Denver DUI lawyer who helped me through the process. Today, I stand a changed man and for the better. My family is very proud of me and I actually ended up meeting my lawyer as well as the family that was involved in the accident caused by me. I have recommended that lawyer to several folks over my lifetime and I thank my lucky stars for all the people who have gotten me to this point… as should you.

It is funny how the use of weed springs up images of unsuccessful people wasting away their day, not able to focus on anything but their high. Right? Isn’t that what our parents ingrained in us that marijuana is this big, bad drug, a scary doorway to the much worse drugs out there. You want to get anywhere in life? Say no to marijuana, Kid!

Fair enough. Kids and teenagers do have impressionable minds and, yes, they do not possess the capacity to evaluate the seriousness of the decisions they may make regarding drinking alcohol or drugs.

However, the problem is, marijuana is more than “just a drug”. It is not the harmful drug it is made out to be. Let’s take a look at how this weed can help a lot of people when not used as a drug, but rather for medicinal purposes.

Easing Anxiety

People who have never suffered from anxiety believe that anxiety is an emotion that can be controlled; they think this is something a person can just “snap out of”. This is not true. The intensity of a panic attack can vary. Some people may feel sad and depressed, some people may cry, but some may get some serious symptoms such as rapid heart beat (mimicking a heart attack!) and shortness of breath. These last two symptoms can be extremely scary especially if you have not experienced a panic attack before.

There is no denying that certain medications do wonders in calming patients down but they can also have certain side effects that patients don’t care for. For people suffering from anxiety on a fairly regular basis, taking medications with side effects can hinder with their productivity and overall quality of their life.

With medicinal marijuana, a lot of patients experience the benefits of relaxation and calming down without feeling those side effects. While some of the medications require downtime (sleepiness for hours!), patients do not experience this with medicinal marijuana.

Easing Nausea

This holds true for a lot patients who receive chemotherapy for cancer treatment. Unfortunately, we have no made advancements where patients can receive chemotherapy without extreme nausea. In such cases, it is so extreme that this can cause patients to be sick for hours on end. They will also experience lack of hunger due to feeling sick.

For a lot of these patients, medicinal marijuana does the trick. It eases their feelings of nausea and wanting to throw up, if not completely. This helps because now these patients can eat; extreme weight loss can haunt a lot of patients due to not having any appetite.

It has taken a long time for politicians to change their view on medicinal marijuana and while we have a long way to go, the overall view regarding this topic has shifted a lot, towards the positive. You can find many dispensaries and the San Diego Marijuana Delivery is another convenient way for patients to access their prescribed medicinal marijuana effectively and reliably.

Of course, it is always recommended that you do your own research, read reviews thoroughly, and make up your own mind, as no one solution is beneficial for everyone.

I have been hooked on Netflix and Showtime for so long that when a friend name dropped Playbox HD, I had no clue what it was. In fact, I felt a little “behind the times” for not knowing which never feels good! Right after meeting up with him, I decided I would go home and look into it myself. I had quite a few questions in my mind such as why would anyone want to choose PlayBox HD over market dominating apps such as Netflix or Hulu Plus?

Here we go!

What IS PlayBox HD?

While Netflix offers a wide variety of movies and hit series of its own, the truth is that new movies and cable series come at a very delayed time. Sometimes six months to a year behind new seasons that cable are playing. While I think Netflix is the bees knees, I can understand why people want more updated content and faster.

Step into the world of PlayBox HD. This app offers the latest movies and comes with quite a few bells and whistles such as multi-language support and a very slick and easy to use interface. Believe it or not, these things that we take for granted can sometimes be lacking in basic features.

Yes, first and foremost, PlayBox HD is free to use and considered safe as well. It also supports Google Chromecast and is extremely compatible. Not only that, but the quality of the movies, series, and cartoons is pretty sick (meaning high quality!)

Not only that, but it is available for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Mac devices. Of course, it can be set up for your computer as well. One feature that I love is it supports all language subtitles for the movies it offers.

Is PlayBox HD For YOU?

Only you can answer that! For me, there was no harm in downloading and messing around with the app. In fact, at first I got frustrated until that very same friend came to my aid. A couple of tweaks and bam, I was so happy to have downloaded this app.

Immediately, I was impressed by the interface. The categories made everything so simple and easy to choose from. The selection was pretty cool because right off the bat, I saw the newest movies. For someone like me who has let go of cable, this was like Christmas. I don’t go to the movies nearly as much because they can be sort of expensive; not just that, but the moviegoers themselves can be rude. Why would I pay nearly $13 a ticket only to have people answer phone calls or text message people during the movie? I can’t believe manners are dying this fast among millennials!

With updated movie selections, there will rarely be a need for me to to waste money at the movies unless I am going out on a date.

In Conclusion…

PlayBox HD is definitely worth your time. If you don’t have cable (even if you do!), download this app and start playing away. I highly recommended this little jewel of an offering.

Ever since I was young, I have been enamored with parties. I used to love being invited to parties and then when my mom and dad would throw me birthday ones, I would go with them to the store, buy decorations, help them come up with the “food” or “snacks ideas”; as I got older, I would go into painstaking details about throwing theme parties.

In fact, I remember when my friends would make fun of me. Today? I am a party planner and I plan weddings as well. I started my business two years ago and my client base has only grown. In fact, repeat business is where it’s at. I printed my first 200 business cards and handed them to family and friends, often giving them extras so they could them out just in case.

I will never forget catering for my best friend. The budget was super small and I walked away with $150 at the end of the day: however, I will never forget how happy she was with what I pulled out with her tiny budget. She told me the chef I hired was incredible, the decorations were classy, the lighting set up quite the ambiance, and her guests kept telling her they were so impressed. As a result, she is still my client today and has spread the word about me all over town with her friends. She even gave me the best Yelp review I could have ever asked for.

No matter what business you have, especially if you are a party planner, you need to make sure you make solid connections. You need to know several chefs, caterers, furniture rental, decor rental, and heck, even other party planners. It’s not a competition! There is plenty of business to go around. Also, if you become overbooked, you can set up a referral fee and refer your client to another trusted party planner or perhaps you can both split the responsibilities and the pay.

That’s why I have some solid corporate entertainers on my list. Yes, I also now throw parties for corporations. These are the best kind because more and more, corporations want to be known for being great workplaces so they can attract the best employees.

I have had almost disasters happen when a caterer or another entertainer couldn’t come through. Since I knew a handful of other party planners, I was able to reach out to them and receive their recommendations for solid caterers and suitable entertainers. The next thing I knew, I had made my network more solid. For a thank you, I took out my friend (now) to lunch.

When you give, people always give back (most of the time!) Stop thinking everyone is a competition and build your empire. Shine bright and attract the best of your industry to you. I planned my first wedding eight months ago but only after shadowing another wedding planner and paying her a fee, which is understandable. She taught me a lot and opened up more of her connections to me.

For over a year now, I have been using Instagram. In fact, I can remember when Facebook integrated ads for Instagram, meaning you could advertise on IG as well, I was stoked. The thing is, these campaigns, if set up right, can work really well. The reach is amazing and it’s all purely visual, so as long as you can do that well, these have the potential to expose your brand to the hundreds, thousands, even millions, depending on your time and budget.

Then, I heard of Pinterest. Mind you, I have known about Pinterest for a while now. In fact, when I did the Pinterest login for the very first time, I felt extremely overwhelmed. I remember seeing all kinds of symbols and struggling with links and those re-pins.

My goodness, those re-pins!

However, I rolled with it. First couple of weeks, I just liked stuff. A lot of images and articles. It started with that until I stumbled onto the “board” and the concept of organizing things onto such boards. I thought it would be a good idea to create the following boards: food, travel, books, movies, art, biking. I have to say, this part was frustrating as I couldn’t grasp the technical steps behind creating these boards. Of course, I know so much better now!

Once I created the boards, the next challenge was apparently pinning the images onto the right boards. Took me a few minutes but the easiest part was this, thankfully.

Now, I am pretty comfortable navigating and playing with Pinterest. It is safe to say that I am pretty addicted to it. I recently launched a website focusing on healthy cooking recipes and I will be creating a Pinterest account dedicated to that.

The idea is to market my site on Pinterest and bring in a healthy amount of traffic from there as well as Google. I am taking pictures of the recipes and posting them on my Pinterest account so people can share them hopefully. I’ll also be linking them to the appropriate recipe posts.

I have been reading articles on how to market on Pinterest and since I love that platform so much, I look forward to testing this area and growing my site into the beast I know it can become.

While I love Facebook and will continue to use it to boost my posts to my own network that I have built over the last few years, it is exciting to live in a time where technology can transcend in the millions and deliver your content worldwide for a mere hundred dollars. Believe it or not, that’s my “big budget” and still, my audience keeps growing!

At the very least, all this interaction of your content with other readers worldwide translates to the big search engines as, “hey, people love this website” and it generally looks great in the eyes of Bing and Google.

If you want to play with the big boys, you have to get comfortable with technology and all the new apps coming out daily.

I think it’s ridiculous: I have friends who are successful in every manner in their lives. Their professional careers have taken off, these people are loved by their families, but sadly, the more successful they are, it seems like they are lacking someone in their personal lives… a partner to share their lives with!

So many people are afraid of labels but there are sites that work for so many people. My best friend met her husband on an online dating site. A really good one I came across and suggested to another friend is this BBW dating site. As long as your mind is open, the options are limitless.

However, just like anything in life, it can take a little while to get into the groove of things. A gay friend who has tried another online dating site seemed discouraged that out of three men he emailed, no one has responded. I asked to look at this profile and noticed what was lacking right away….

Put Effort Into Your Online Profile

Whether you are a male or a female, and this hold true in the online dating world for straight people as well 😉 , make sure to completely fill out your profile. Start with a nice, friendly picture. I’ve seen some crazy profile pictures which doesn’t serve the featured person very well.

A normal picture of you having fun and smiling will do the job well!

Next up? Don’t be lazy! Please make sure to take time with your profile. Present yourself well. Don’t lie, of course, as that will never work out for the long term.

For instance, if you are work driven, make sure to mention that. Some people only want to date people who can turn that switch off while others find such work related passion to be a relief and as an attractive trait.

List all the things you enjoy! Are you a pet person? Are you specifically a cat person and dislike dogs? (I am not sure how that can be possible!) While you want to give a clear indication of who you are and what you are seeking, you don’t want to come off as a picky jerk who is robotic-ally putting together another mate. Remember: we are all humans with unique personalities and no one comes “perfect”.

Which brings me to another point: while I understand that there are compromises that can not be made, by all means choose someone who is compatible. However, do not break up with people just because it’s easy to not compromise (hey, relationships are all about compromises!)

Anyways, realize that you are worth the love you want to give other people. Be confident in who you are and you will attract not only the right type of friends, but also the right partner. Because life just works that way if you give yourself an honest chance!

Being an entrepreneur has been a serious test of myself as an individual and as a business person. Not only do I have to juggle too many hats in a given day, but I also have to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

…and if it’s not, guess whose fault is it?

My Own Fault

The first two years, I had the awful idea that most entrepreneurs do: managing their own accounting. Whoa. I got so many things wrong that I got in trouble, two years in a row, when it came to doing taxes. Furthermore, when I hired an accounting firm to help me sort out the mess, they abandoned me halfway through the process and wouldn’t refund my money I had paid them for a full job.

In the last two months, I’ve kept in touch with the bookkeeper goldcoast. Of course, they came with a personal recommendation and I also found a couple of reviews online, really good ones, so I decided to email them.

Within a few hours, I received the nicest, in-depth answers I’ve ever received from any company. Not only that, but the tone was casual enough where I felt comfortable enough to set up an appointment and go in the next day.

You see, the thing is… most people may even look down on you because you don’t know how to handle accounting yourself. What they don’t realize is there are only so many hours in a day and when you dream of opening your own business, you don’t realize that you also need to develop the skills to become a businessperson… and that, people, in itself is a full-time job.

Believe you me!

If I were you, the first thing I would do is open up your own business account. Keep all business transactions in that account so you can always print out a summary from your bank or if you have an online account setup, this should be easy enough.

I work in a big company, in the HR department. HR may stand for “human resources” but trust me when I say, I handle way more than just the necessary work. If you have been working somewhere for a long time (over two or three years), you tend to become friends with the people you work with (well, in a good amount of cases). Not all the time, but most cases. So, yes, while I handle a lot of things, people tend to assign me a little bit more of the “fun duties” such as… planning parties.

Our company is a big enough company. Not only do we throw an end of the year party for our own people (our co-workers), but we also throw parties for clients… and those tend to be way more fun.

Why so much fun?

The budgets! I love helping out the official party planners within the company. One day, I want to transfer to that department.

For example, we once held a party for a client who wanted his guests to have delicious hors d’oeuvres, be entertained, have a small dance floor. Since I have connections, I rang up the crew at Juggling Inferno corporate entertainers and hired a couple of the fire jugglers. Not only did we have entertained guests, but they had questions for the entertainers afterwards. In fact, that was the best part of the night for them.

Of course, we took care in elegantly decorating the place. It still had to be a classy affair. We stuck to good lighting: not too bright but enough light so people could move about comfortably, see each other’s faces, hold good conversations. This party was held at night, starting at 9 pm, so we had to nail this part.

This should have been discussed earlier but location is ESSENTIAL! Depending on the budget you have, you need to select a spot that your client (the host) will love as well as set the tone for the evening, whether it’s fun and playful, or sleek, or casual.

Five years later, this person is still our client and trusts us to throw parties for him.

Ever since I was young, I was fascinated with cars. All types of cars! I grew up in a family where cars were admired. My father, grandfather, and older brother are all blue collar men and the first two were mechanics. I remember my dad always fixing up an old school car in the home garage and his work garage. He would always be messing around with his “projects”.

Now, I’m not a mechanic; I went to community college and became a lawyer. I make a good living and I own a hot rod (for fun), I bought one for my brother as a project to work on, and I also on a couple of luxury cars. A lot of people think that is extravagant, but I say, to each their own. I don’t judge others, and I don’t care for others to judge me.

When I feel stressed out, I like to invite my dad and brother over to go over the latest in cars. We also work on my cars. Just the smell of the leaked oil, rubber of the tires, old car parts like an almost worn out engine or transmission… ah, the memories and the nostalgia.

Once in a rare while, I’ll test out luxury car. This is OC’s go to luxury car rental company. They have always treated me well. They have a good variety of luxury cars, customer service is pretty sweet (as it should be), and the rates are decent (not highway robbery… pun intended!)

The next thing to do is to camp in San Diego with my own son. I think it will be a bonding experience. I will rent a Lexus, something cool like that, and maybe we can do a Pacific Coast Highway trip.

What could be better than passing on the tradition to my son? Cars, nostalgia, childhood!

When I was in high school, I was a fairly active kid. I participated in basketball and ice hockey and played for three years. At an younger age, I also casually picked up snowboarding, surfing, and skateboarding. My family and friends pegged me as a natural athlete, one who didn’t have to try at much but was “pretty good” and fluid at most sports I picked up.

By far, though, the hardest time I’ve ever had with a sport is football… something to do with nailing the routes and getting the timing and chemistry right between myself and the quarterback. The quarterback, who, by the way, never liked me anyway.

What a tangent. Back to the point: once I graduated from college, I put on 50 extra pounds. I’m also the type of person on whom 50 lbs can look more like 70-80 lbs.

How Can I Lose Weight?!

Having tried every fad diet under the sun in the last few years (and never lasting or seeing results), I decided my main goal would be to ‘stay active’ 4-5 days a week. For the first 3 months, I stuck to hiking. I’d concentrate on walking. Not even timing. I started with easy hiking for an hour, then it turned into two and before I knew it, it became one of my favorite hobbies.

The next activity that stole my heart? Kayaking. Gosh, all it took was a weekend of cabin, camping out fun with my friends, tucked away from the world. The food was plain, bland, and crap but the stars were beautiful and we had so much fun renting a boat, jet skiing, canoeing and hiking. It was a blast.

That’s when I learned about the cheaper option of inflatable kayaks. Let me tell you: if you don’t have a lot of room and wanna spend less than two hundred bucks on something fun and awesome and want to lose weight, invest in one of these babies. So, I researched tons of options and read a helpful article on tandem kayaks.

To date, I not only lost the initial 50 pounds I gained so long ago, but today, collectively, I am proud to have lost 70 pounds! Be sure to look at the big sites if you want to buy an inflatable kayak. Not only that, I feel excited every morning when I wake up (17) 🙂